Bubble Bobble Bollocks

This entry was going to be about something entirely different but until we visited a bootsale we were totally in the dark about all this.  We've detailled previously that our love affair with NES Bubble Bobble is a deep and complex one, extending to any new system emulated we look for a version of the game to play on it.  

After a couple of disappointing bootsales we decided to revisit the memorial hospital bootsale up on Woolwich common.  Just before marathon day an all, leading to a big detour before we managed to get in.  In fact apart from some snacks, the only thing we picked up was Bubble Bobble Evolution for the princely sum of £3.50.

We heard from several sources that it was a particularly piss poor effort but untill we decided to get it home and play it well it outdoes itself on being shit.

Bubble Bobble Evolution.
Platform:PSP.
Maker: Taito corp, Licensed to Rising Star games.
Number of players: One player.
Firmware: 2.67
Genre: Platformer / Puzzle game.

The first thing we did when we get it home was read through the instruction manual and really wish we didn't.
Bub and Bob are now apparently living in 18th London playing on the banks of the Thames when they are transformed into dinosaurs and captured by persons unknown.  Their whole raison d'etre it seems is to escape from twin towers by way of using their bubbles to solve puzzles and flick switches.

There are a whole assortment of switches to flick and generators which send bubbles over the 3 stages.  Oh and there are enemies to bubble up but they don't do much here and are treated not only with disdain but almost irrelavance.  You do get points for bubbling them up but not for popping them (nor do you get anything in the way of bonuses except for some token pick ups, its all about the puzzles not the scores here), oh and before say anything this what the main monsters.

This does not bode well.

So we decided to put this in the PSP after seeing just what the fuck they had done with Bub n Bob.  Lets just say when it came to it sucking I wasn't disappointed.  We didn't mention this before, but you don't just play as Bub or Bob, your playing human Bub and Bob but this time cosplaying as the dinosaurs from the original Bubble Bobble.  Not only is this idea fucked up but the implementation is fucked also.  The controls are really woolly and there are some platforms that you can jump through and some you can't, not helped by the poor controls.  Sometimes when blowing bubbles it seems that sometimes it badly overlaps as if you've blown a big square tile (and we really hope its tile based, for PSP stuff) with a bubble on it instead of just a bubble. 

Even worse is to come when you do manage to clear a stage and face off against a boss.  You'll do this twice, no thanks to the twin towers idea.  There are set points where your bubbles can be directed to one of the badly rendered mayors in BBE.  You'll not take damage from contact with the boss (in this case a badly rendered, house faced golem), but thanks to this jet area neither will any off your bubbles, causing him to switch to another level and carry on with its attack.  Eventually you'll finish him off and have the depressing task to do it all again in the other tower.  At this point we did the decent thing and gave up. 

Tatio proved that they could do justice to Bubble Bobble with the excellent Bubble Bobble Neo for Xbox 360 and Wiiware (oh and piss off many with their update to Rainbow Islands: Towering Islands at the same time) however they seem to have a 'brown' touch when it comes to hand held implementations of the series.
We may subject ourselves to the DS version Bubble Bobble Revolution (and its pox riddled boxart.) thanks to DeSmuMe getting an update. However at this time for PSP owners and those with custom firmware get FCE ultra and the NES rom for how Bubble Bobble should be played.

Overall 2/10 Yet another atrocity comitted in twin towers thanks to Tatio's undeserved update.